November sales: Volvo cars rises 6%

As demand in China remained strong and European deliveries bounced back from a 4 percent drop in October, Volvo Cars announced its global sales rose 6 % in November, its fifth straight month of growth.

The automaker, which ran a loss in the first half of the year, is banking on a rapid expansion in China to lift it toward a target of roughly doubling sales to 800,000 cars by 2020.

‘’Sweden and China are very strong, Europe shows a positive trend and in the U.S. we now have the right tools to get back on track,” Alain Visser, sales and marketing chief, said in a statement.

The company said it sold 37,945 cars last month as deliveries in China, the home of its parent Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., and Volvo’s European market more than offset a continued slide in the United States. Global sales in October rose 4 %.

In China, the automaker’s single-biggest market for the third consecutive month, sales rose 69 % to 5,995, while sales in Europe rose 11 % to 21,167. Deliveries in the U.S. fell 31 % to 4,233, Volvo said in the statement.

This sales growth is pivotal as Volvo seeks to take on larger global luxury brands such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi and win a market share big enough to finance for investments in development of new vehicles.

After suffering poor sales last year, sales of Volvo models such as the S60 and XC60 have lately begun picking up in many of its markets though weakness in North America, traditionally its largest market by far, has lingered.